Learned this the other day in BioPsych: The reason why flashcards are a great way to memorize concepts and terms is because when you study with them, you make your brain work hard to retrieve information from your memory.The more you do this, the better it stays in your long-term memory. —> To remember things better, you must make yourself retrieve that information several times. This is also the reason why simply reading over your notes a thousand times won’t help you study. Because you’re not working hard to retrieve any information, the info is not consolidated in your long-term memory and stays in your working memory (only up to 5 seconds max).

I got some questions recently on reading a book/textbook and taking notes. Here is the part about textbook reading, I’ll come up with novel-type book reading soon! The three main things you can do while reading a textbook are: 1) Stop highlighting and start writing things down- on margins or in a notebook. Because you’re thinking while writing, it will help you remember the information more. 2)Take concise notes, don’t include details. Key concepts and short descriptions only, no ramblings. 3) Look at the big picture. Summarize the chapters you’ve read, organize all information on paper. In the end you will know the key ideas and will just need to sort out the smaller details. Happy reading!

Quick Tips for Answering Multiple Choice Questions 1. Read question and underline what it’s asking you. 2. Cover the answer choices (a, b, c, d) with your hand and try to answer the question yourself, without any help. Seeing the answer choices will just confuse and distract you. 3. Use the Process of Elimination: – Eliminate what is obviously a wrong answer – Now only focus on what’s left. Now you won’t pay attention to the wrong answer choice and it won’t distract you anymore. Note* Strongly-worded answer choices are rarely the right answer! See example on the picture 🙂 My econ professor told us a few of these- you still have to study, but these techniques makes it easier for you to find the right answer among all the wrong ones that distract you. ** If you have any more tips you’d like to share with us, Submit them to me and I will post them and credit you, of course, or comment below!

The Pro’s and Con’s of Multitasking. Big picture: when you’re studying, try to get rid of all distractions. Listening to music, watching TV or texting while studying makes us divide our attention. So in the end, we don’t fully concentrate on either task neither of them gets done 100% well. Sources: Psych 101; 2

Psych fact: you can only have full focus in one activity. That’s why when you are multitasking, neither of the activities is done perfectly well. This rule also applies to having background noises/music/movies when studying: you divide your attention between studying and the background stuff and neither of them is done completely. Also, apparently multitasking is not good for your brain! It affects your memory and attention (see source 1), and levels of stress (source 2) Sources: 1, 2, Bonus: how multitasking is actually promoted by today’s technology and how you can get things done faster: 3